Book a Dynamic Keynote Speaker on
Governance, Career, Leadership & Culture
Leilani M. Brown is a global keynote speaker who delivers results, not just applause.
She is the speaker you book when you need to inspire change and restore momentum. When leadership teams are fractured and decisions keep stalling. When your board needs governance clarity — not another feel-good session. When your organization is navigating disruption and needs someone who’s actually been in the rooms where those decisions get made.
Every engagement is custom-researched. No recycled content. No generic best practices. Just straight talk that gets rooms aligned and moves the work forward.
As a professional speaker, Leilani delivers compelling keynotes and workshops to audiences of over 1,000 people and in smaller, interactive sessions and guest lectures. She combines inspiration and motivation with concrete, actionable insights — delivered with clarity and a dose of humor. Attendance satisfaction consistently exceeds 95%.
Most requested for: Executive and board retreats, professional conferences, leadership development programs, campus career events, and organizational transformations where strategy and clarity matter more than motivation alone.
Leilani delivers unique, custom-researched keynotes tailored to each organization. Her dynamic approach combines inspiration with practical strategies, ensuring audiences leave energized and equipped with actionable roadmaps. Each presentation is distinct and carefully crafted.
Signature Keynotes
What High-Performing Boards Do Differently
Boards that micromanage operations, rubber-stamp decisions, or disengage entirely create leadership confusion, strategic drift, and erosion of trust.
What changes:
This keynote delivers clear governance-vs-operations boundaries, decision-making rituals that improve quality without adding meeting time, and renewed board engagement anchored in modern governance best practices — not outdated models.
Ideal for: Board retreats, trustee conferences, and governance committees navigating leadership transition, succession, or underperformance.
Leadership at the Front Lines of Public Service
Frontline public sector leaders — interpreters, coordinators, supervisors, case managers — serve complex populations under intense pressure, often without leadership development that reflects the reality of their work: balancing performance, care, and limited resources.
What changes:
This keynote delivers grounded, practical leadership tools with emphasis on sustainable performance, healthy boundaries, and leading with both accountability and humanity.
Ideal for: Government agencies, justice systems, public sector leadership development programs, and mission-driven organizations.
Early Career
Essential Skills for Today’s Workplace. — Focuses on the crucial but often underestimated skills in high demand today. Students gain practical tools for effective communication, problem-solving, and collaboration that immediately increase their workplace value.
Building Professional Confidence and Presence. — Concrete techniques for everything from executive communications to navigating difficult conversations. Students learn how to project capability and confidence in professional settings.
Preparing for Jobs That Don’t Yet Exist. — Equips students with the adaptability and foresight needed for tomorrow’s economy. This forward-looking talk helps graduates cultivate an entrepreneurial mindset and sharpen the transferable skills needed for long-term career resilience.
Act Like You Belong. Because You Do. — Empowers students to navigate workplace cultures with confidence and authenticity. This impactful talk helps diverse students recognize their value while developing essential professional presence that opens doors to opportunity.
The Things No One Tells You. — Reveals the unwritten rules and unspoken feedback that ultimately determine career advancement. Students gain insider knowledge about the behaviors, attitudes, and subtle professional cues that influence how they’re perceived in the workplace.
Managing Your Personal Brand. — Equips students with strategies to intentionally craft their professional identity. This practical session shows how to align personal values with career goals and company culture to stand out in competitive job markets.
Navigating Early Career Challenges. — Actionable strategies for overcoming the most common obstacles new graduates face. Students learn to transform entry-level positions into launching pads for meaningful career growth.
Your First Job Live
Also offered in a customized, interactive format recorded in-person on college campuses and at corporate events, the Your First Job LIVE experience allows audiences to engage directly with thought leaders in real-time discussions about career development, workplace culture, and personal branding.
Always dynamic and impactful, these sessions foster connections between seasoned professionals and emerging talent — part conversation, part masterclass, part live podcast.
Book Your First Job LIVE — an interactive experience bringing career conversations to life at your event.
From Campus to Career: What No One Tells You About Your First Year
The gap between academic preparation and workplace readiness is wider than most institutions and employers realize. New graduates and early-career professionals arrive with degrees and ambition but often lack the practical skills that determine whether they thrive or stall — professional communication, relationship-building, feedback navigation, perception management, and the confidence to show up and contribute from day one.
What changes:
This keynote delivers a proven framework drawn from Leilani’s celebrated book From Campus to Career: 25 Tips for Your First Professional Year. Participants leave with concrete, immediately usable strategies for making a strong professional impression, building workplace relationships, and accelerating their growth in the critical first year.
Ideal for: Colleges, universities, career services programs, employer onboarding, new hire orientations, professional associations, and any organization investing in emerging talent.
Career Reinvention After Disruption
Professionals and leaders navigating layoffs, industry shifts, or strategic career pivots often lose clarity, confidence, and momentum — unsure how to rebuild without starting over.
What changes:
This keynote delivers a practical framework for career reset that restores confidence and direction. Participants leave with concrete next steps, strategic networking tools, and renewed belief that they belong in the rooms they want to enter — even when the path is not linear.
Ideal for: Alumni programs, professional development conferences, women’s leadership summits, corporate transition support, and early and mid-career professionals.
In addition to the signature keynotes, Leilani offers a suite of campus-focused presentations designed for students, interns, and early-career professionals. Each session is grounded in the practical, real-world frameworks from her book From Campus to Career.
High Value Customized Workshops
Leilani delivers unique, custom-researched keynotes tailored to each organization. Her dynamic approach combines inspiration with practical strategies, ensuring audiences leave energized and equipped with actionable roadmaps. Each presentation is distinct and carefully crafted.
What High-Performing Boards Do Differently
Boards that micromanage operations, rubber-stamp decisions, or disengage entirely create leadership confusion, strategic drift, and erosion of trust.
What changes:
This keynote delivers clear governance-vs-operations boundaries, decision-making rituals that improve quality without adding meeting time, and renewed board engagement anchored in modern governance best practices — not outdated models.
Ideal for: Board retreats, trustee conferences, and governance committees navigating leadership transition, succession, or underperformance.
Leadership at the Front Lines of Public Service
Frontline public sector leaders — interpreters, coordinators, supervisors, case managers — serve complex populations under intense pressure, often without leadership development that reflects the reality of their work: balancing performance, care, and limited resources.
What changes:
This keynote delivers grounded, practical leadership tools with emphasis on sustainable performance, healthy boundaries, and leading with both accountability and humanity.
Ideal for: Government agencies, justice systems, public sector leadership development programs, and mission-driven organizations.
What It Feels Like To Work With Leilani
Warm authority + high standards. Commands the room while making everyone feel seen.
Insightful, structured, energizing. Complex ideas made clear and actionable.
Story + strategy + practical tools. Real examples and frameworks teams can use immediately.
No inspiration without implementation. Every engagement ends with clear next steps.
Humor with straight talk. Honest, grounded, and human — without being harsh or performative.
“Your address was the talk of the evening — the perfect blend of expertise, passion, and data-driven insight that was both memorable and immediately useful.”
— Trustee Conference Organizer
“You were the standout keynote of our conference. Your stories and insights challenged us to rethink assumptions about life, work, and purpose. Attendees are still quoting you.”
— Professional Association Conference Host
“I can’t recall a program for our alumni that has had a greater impact. You strengthened our community in ways we’re still seeing.”
— Alumni Programs Director
“You captured the heart of our public service work with empathy and precision, honoring the human element that drives our pursuit of justice.”
— Public Sector Leader
Leilani M. Brown is the Founder and CEO of Giant Steps, LLC — and she has been in the rooms she advises.
Before launching Giant Steps, Leilani spent two decades as an award-winning executive at Stride, Starr Insurance Companies, The Economist Group, MetLife, and American International Group — leading teams, building strategy, and sitting at tables where the decisions actually get made.
She has served on boards for more than 25 years — not as a passive member, but as Vice Chair at Middlebury College, Chair of the Board at the Jamaica Center for Arts and Learning, Board Secretary for the Executive Leadership Council, and Chair of the Governance Committee at Buckley Country Day School. She holds a Directorship Certification from the National Association of Corporate Directors (NACD).
Leilani is the author of three books — From Campus to Career: 25 Tips for Your First Professional Year, Your Next Giant Steps: 25 Practical Tips for Job Search Success, and Your Next Giant Reset: A Career Comeback Plan — and hosts Giant Steps with Leilani Brown, a podcast exploring the pivotal decisions and reinventions that shape meaningful work and lives.
Her thought leadership has appeared in Newsweek, Fortune, EdTech Digest, Authority Magazine, and Scary Mommy. She holds a B.A. from Middlebury College and an M.P.A. from New York University.
Career Reinvention After Disruption
Professionals and leaders navigating layoffs, industry shifts, or strategic career pivots often lose clarity, confidence, and momentum — unsure how to rebuild without starting over.
What changes:
This keynote delivers a practical framework for career reset that restores confidence and direction. Participants leave with concrete next steps, strategic networking tools, and renewed belief that they belong in the rooms they want to enter — even when the path is not linear.
Ideal for: Alumni programs, professional development conferences, women’s leadership summits, corporate transition support, and early and mid-career professionals.
What Organizations Report
Clients who bring Leilani in consistently see results that last well beyond the event:
• Leadership aligned around shared priorities in hours, not months
• Board-management friction resolved with new governance clarity and healthier partnership
• Trust rebuilt and burnout reduced in teams recovering from disruption or change fatigue
• Faster, higher-quality decision-making with accountability that sticks
• Zero post-event drift — concrete action plans coming out of the room
What Clients Are Saying
“You wove decades of experience, compelling stories, and a data-driven approach into a presentation that was both memorable and immediately useful.”
— Independent School Leader
“Leilani’s masterpiece has been a favorite of our students. When we asked her to speak, the students were in awe of the tremendous nuggets of knowledge that she dropped. Many of those who’ve moved onto corporate roles speak about her expertise, professionalism, and spirit.”
— Leader, Fortune 100 Technology Company
“Leilani Brown was an outstanding keynote speaker at our annual conference. She is incredibly engaging and thoughtful — her empowering content and stories, all tailored to her audience, challenge us to reconsider our assumptions about life, work, and purpose. And all done with warmth and humor. Truly the highlight of the conference.”
— Chair, Small College Career Association
“Once again, Leilani has translated her invaluable experience as a corporate executive, marketing guru, and performance coach to provide an insider’s view to emerging young professionals. It was the best part of our two-day conference.”
— Fortune 500 Chief Human Resources Officer
Sector Experience
Corporate: Global Fortune 500 companies including insurance, financial services, technology, and media; CEO coalitions and public-private partnerships
Education: Independent schools (US and abroad), public school systems, liberal arts colleges, university career centers
Government: State and federal agencies, judiciary systems, public sector organizations
Nonprofit: International foundations, executive leadership organizations, arts and culture institutions, nonprofit and cultural councils
Healthcare: Healthcare leadership teams and workforce resilience programs
Membership Associations: Higher education career networks, professional associations, independent school associations and heads associations, chamber of commerce groups